by Nic Saint
“I don’t think Gran will listen to us, Kingman,” said Dooley. “She doesn’t even listen to her own family.”
“Well, she should. Actions have consequences, and before she does anything rash she should consider those consequences.”
I frowned at the big cat. “All this wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Gran had some kind of altercation with Wilbur last night, would it?”
“Oh, no, absolutely not,” Kingman was quick to assure me.
But just then, Wilbur caught sight of Dooley and myself, and came stomping out of his store, swinging his fists and looking extremely annoyed. “Oh, no, you don’t!” he yelled. “You can’t come in here and spy on me, you two!”
He picked up a tomato, and made to throw it in my direction. But then he seemed to think better of it and put it down again. After all, a tomato is a sellable item and why waste good money? So instead he picked up a pebble, and aimed that at me!
“Hey!” I said. “Are you kidding me right now?”
Luckily Wilbur has terrible aim, and the pebble zipped right over my head.
“Get lost, you two!” Wilbur screamed. “Go away and never come back!”
“Kingman, restrain your human!” I said, remembering Kingman’s words about cats being responsible for their humans. “Tell him to cease and desist!”
“Sorry, Max,” said Kingman. “But the ball is in your court now.”
And since Wilbur was already picking up another pebble, bigger than the last, I decided things were definitely getting a little too hot here, and so we skedaddled.
“I won’t forget this, Kingman!” I yelled.
“I’m sorry, Max!” he yelled back. “If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas!”
And as we put some distance between ourselves and Kingman’s berserk human, Dooley asked, “What did Kingman mean, Max?”
“It’s an expression,” I explained, still greatly perturbed by the blatant betrayal of our friend. “It means that if you get involved with a bad person you suffer the consequences.”
“And who’s the bad person?”
“I suppose he means Gran, and Odelia, too, probably.”
“Odelia? But Odelia isn’t a bad person, Max.”
“I know she isn’t, but you know the kind of gossipmonger Kingman is. He heard something about Odelia getting questioned, and he’s turned it into a story about her being arrested for the attack on Carl.”
“Odelia arrested!”
“She wasn’t, all right?” I said, perhaps a little more curtly than I intended. “Odelia was simply asked to explain why her fingerprints were on the golf club used as a weapon to hit Carl Strauss over the head with. Unfortunately she couldn’t explain, but that doesn’t mean she’s guilty of attacking the man. Odelia would never do a thing like that.”
“Oh, I know she wouldn’t. Odelia isn’t capable of such an act of violence. She’s the nicest, sweetest person on the planet. In fact I think she must be some kind of saint.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” I said, glancing back and noticing how Wilbur was still staring after us. And then I noticed something else: the same person who’d been filming us at the dog park was filming us now: a round-faced individual of considerable proportions was holding up his smartphone and following us at a couple of paces distance, filming our every move. “There he is again,” I told Dooley, as my friend, too, turned around. We both sat staring at the man, as he brazenly stood there filming us!
“And he’s filming us again.”
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” I asked.
“You can’t film us,” Dooley added. “Not without talking to our Hollywood agent!”
But of course the man didn’t understand a word we said. He probably just thought it was funny to see two cats meowing up a storm like this.
“Get lost, you,” I said, and when he didn’t budge, I walked up to him, hoping to exude menace. And when that didn’t do the trick, I hissed at the guy, and extended the old claw.
“So cute,” he said, and mustn’t have realized I meant business, for he just kept on filming, the horrible wannabe director! “So where’s your human, kitty cat?” he asked. “Where is Odelia? Shouldn’t you help her write her stories, mh?”
I frowned at the guy. “What are you talking about?”
“You are her cat spy, aren’t you? So what are you doing out here, wasting time with other cats? Or is that part of your MO? You interact with other cats of the neighborhood, gathering information, and then deliver it to Odelia? Is that how this works?”
“Oh, will you get lost already?” I said, borrowing Wilbur’s words, and walked off.
“What does he want, Max?” asked Dooley.
“He seems to know about us,” I said as I glanced over my shoulder. The guy was still filming, but at least he’d stopped pursuing us.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure, but he seems to know that we spy around for Odelia, and give her the information we collect.”
“But how? How would he know about that?”
“You know, Dooley, the longer I live in this town, the more I start to realize that nothing is sacred, and nothing is secret. Everybody seems to be all over everybody else’s business, and frankly it’s starting to annoy me.”
“Maybe he’s one of Carl Strauss’s sex maniac friends,” Dooley suggested. “And he thinks Odelia attacked his friend and now he’s trying to find out more about her.”
“I very much doubt whether Carl has any sex maniac friends, Dooley,” I said with a smile.
“Oh, but if he’s a sex maniac, he must have gone to sex maniac meetings, like the anonymous alcoholics, and he must have had a buddy, like the anonymous alcoholics always have a buddy they can call when they want a drink. So maybe this guy is Carl’s buddy from his sex maniacs anonymous group, and he’s trying to help his friend.”
“It’s possible,” I said. “I’m definitely going to report this to Odelia. If there’s a guy going around filming us and asking a lot of questions, she needs to know about it.”
22
Odelia was in her office putting the final touches to her article about her visit to the hospital that morning, where Carl Strauss was still laid up after the break-in. Ellie was sitting next to her, watching as she wrote, which felt a little weird to Odelia, as she’d never allowed anyone to look over her shoulder as she typed up her articles before.
“You type so fast,” said Ellie admiringly. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to type as fast as you.”
“It’s practice. You just need to practice a lot and you’ll get better at it—and faster.”
“I still type with two fingers,” said Ellie with an eyeroll, “so I have a lot of practicing to do before I’ll ever be as good as you.”
“Why don’t you write your version of the story?” Odelia now suggested. “And maybe we can add it to mine—sort of like a second perspective?”
Ellie’s eyes went wide. “You want me to write an article for the Gazette?”
“Well, not a whole article, more like a short piece. We could print it next to mine.”
“Oh, this is so great,” said Ellie. She was beaming. “When do you need it?”
“Before tonight. Let’s say… three hundred words?”
“You got it,” said Ellie, and got up to start work on her first article for the Gazette.
The door to the office suddenly flew open, and a woman walked in. “Odelia Poole? My daughter’s been arrested and you’re responsible.” She didn’t look happy, not happy at all.
“Who is your daughter, Mrs…”
“Hudson. Jacqueline Hudson. My daughter’s name is Emma, and she was arrested last night because of your doing!” She was pointing an irate finger in Odelia’s direction.
Immediately Ellie got up and said, “Hey, you can’t just barge in here and start accusing Odelia of all kinds of things.”
“But she did—she got my Emma arrested last night, and
now she’s in jail, and they’re accusing her of attempted murder!”
“Look, your daughter was caught breaking into Carl Strauss’s home last night,” said Odelia, also getting up. “And she’s already confessed to being a member of the Hampton Heisters, who are suspected of at least half a dozen other break-ins. So Emma is not innocent in all of this, Mrs. Hudson.”
Suddenly the woman sank down onto a chair and burst into tears, burying her face in her hands. “I know,” she said between sobs. “And I don’t get it. She never used to be like this. Emma was an A-level student. We already had a college picked out for her, and now this.”
“You didn’t know she was breaking into people’s homes?” asked Odelia.
“No, of course I didn’t! If I’d known do you think I wouldn’t have tried to stop her?”
“Your daughter is refusing to tell the police what they want to know,” said Odelia. “Is that your doing? Did you advise her not to cooperate with the authorities?”
“No, I most certainly did not. Look, she doesn’t want to talk to us, and her father and I are frantic with worry. First this whole break-in thing, and now she’s being accused of attempted murder? I just don’t understand!”
“Emma is part of a gang of burglars,” Odelia explained. “The Hampton Heisters, as they’ve been dubbed. They only target the rich and famous, and always take a lot of memorabilia, apart from the valuables and the money that they steal.”
“I know. I read the papers. I know what she’s being accused of. I’m just telling you this is not like her. Emma is a good girl. All I can think is that she must have gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd somehow.”
“Emma chose to be involved with this gang, Mrs. Hudson,” said Ellie. “She chose to participate in these high-profile burglaries, so it’s not as if she simply tagged along.”
“Who are you?” asked Mrs. Hudson, giving Ellie a not-so-friendly look.
“Ellie is my… intern,” said Odelia.
“Well, I suggest before you start casting aspersions on people you first check your facts,” said Emma’s mother. “Because I know for a fact that this is nothing like my daughter. And I also know for a fact that she would never raise a hand against anyone. So whatever the police are saying, she can’t possibly be involved with this—no way.”
“She was caught red-handed,” Ellie pointed out, also getting a little worked up. “Odelia caught her personally breaking into Carl Strauss’s house last night.”
“How is Carl?” asked Mrs. Hudson. “Is he going to be all right?”
“He’s still in a coma,” said Odelia. “We went to see him this morning and the doctors have no idea when he might come out of it.”
“Or even if he’ll come out of it,” Ellie added.
“This is a nightmare,” said Mrs. Hudson. She then directed a pleading look at Odelia. “Can’t you put in a good word for Emma? You saw her, you met her. You must have seen that she’s not like these other people she got mixed up with.”
“She did strike me as a highly intelligent young woman,” Odelia admitted. “But I think she also realizes that she made a big mistake.”
“I know,” said Mrs. Hudson ruefully. “Please talk to the police, Miss Poole. I know you have a lot of pull with them. Tell them that Emma is not a violent person. She just got swept along with these Hampton Heisters people and somehow things got out of hand.”
In spite of herself, Odelia felt sorry for the woman. It wasn’t easy for her to watch her daughter languish in the police lockup. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said therefore, earning herself a frown from Ellie, who clearly wasn’t as taken in with Mrs. Hudson as she was. “But if you get the chance to talk to your daughter, you need to tell her to give us the names of the other members of the gang. It would create a lot of goodwill for her, and the judge will be more lenient with her as well. I think it would make a big difference.”
“If she agrees to see us, I’ll tell her,” said Mrs. Hudson, already a lot more subdued than she had been when she first barged her way into the office yelling accusations.
“Just tell Emma to cooperate, Mrs. Hudson,” Ellie advised. “That’s the best thing you can do for her right now. Simply tell her to cooperate with the police as much as she can.”
Mrs. Hudson nodded and got up. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for the advice.”
Once she’d left, Ellie said, “How could you promise to help her? She’s clearly guilty.”
“Even guilty people have rights, Ellie. And I think Mrs. Hudson just might be right in that her daughter got mixed up in something that simply snowballed out of control.”
“I think she knew exactly what she was doing. And it wouldn’t surprise me if she took a swing at Carl, too.”
“I guess the police will have to decide what happened.”
“I thought they always listened to you?”
Odelia smiled. “Not always.”
Her phone rang out a pleasant tune and she saw that Charlene Butterwick was trying to get in touch with her. “Hey, Charlene,” she said.
“Odelia, you really have to do something about your grandmother,” said Charlene.
Oh, dear. “What did she do this time?”
“She tried to bribe me!”
“She did what?”
“Offered me money in exchange for a building permit. Fifty thousand dollars if I would allow her to build an extra few stories on top of the house. I told her what she was doing was illegal, but she insisted!”
“I’m sorry, Charlene. You know Gran. She’s a little…”
“Nuts!”
“… eccentric.”
“Your uncle’s already had a strongly worded talk with her, but I was hoping you could have a conversation with her, too. I know she respects you and listens to you.”
“Sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn’t. Gran has a mind of her own, and oftentimes she doesn’t listen to anyone.”
“Well, I just hope you’ll be able to impress it upon her that this kind of behavior simply will not stand. Imagine if people find out about this. And they discover that I didn’t press charges. Can you imagine the damage this will do to my reputation?”
“I know, and I’m sorry, Charlene. And I will talk to her, I promise.”
After she’d hung up, and seeing Ellie’s questioning look, she shrugged and said, “Family stuff. Nothing to worry about.”
Ellie chuckled. “Trust me, I know all about family stuff.”
The door opened and Max and Dooley walked in, looking a little perturbed. Unfortunately she couldn’t talk to her cats now that Ellie was in the room with them, but that didn’t mean her cats couldn’t talk to her. And they did—very vociferously, too!
“Odelia, Wilbur just chased us away from the General Store,” said Max, “because he and Gran got into some kind of argument last night, and Gran hit his car with her car, and now he doesn’t want us near the store again.”
“He called us spies,” said Dooley. “Spies for Gran.”
“And also, a man has been spying on us and filming us. He’s a big man, young, and seems to know a lot about us, and also about you—he knew that we’re your emissaries and how we collect bits of news for you and everything!”
“He’s Carl Strauss’s sex maniac buddy,” Dooley announced, quite surprisingly. “He’s probably upset with you because he thinks that you attacked his sex maniac friend last night, and now he wants to find out more about you.”
Never before had Odelia felt so hamstrung by the presence of another person in the room. She wanted to ask Max and Dooley about a million questions, but just had to sit there and play dumb!
“I’m going to get some coffee,” said Ellie. “Do you want something?”
“You know what? Could you maybe run down to the bakery and get me a couple of donuts? I suddenly have this incredible craving for donuts.”
Ellie grinned. “You really have that cop DNA, don’t you? Sure, I’ll get you some donuts.”
The mom
ent the girl had left, Odelia burst out, “What’s all this about a sex maniac guy stalking you and filming you? And what in the name of all that is holy has gotten into Wilbur all of a sudden?”
And before long, and in as few words as possible, Max and Dooley recounted to her the events that had transpired that morning. And before Ellie returned carrying a bag of glazed donuts with sprinkles, Odelia’s life had been made a little more complicated still.
23
We’d arrived home after an eventful day spent in town, and were pleased to find that we had the house to ourselves. And so after having eaten our fill, both in crunchy kibble and what was left over from the pouches of soft food Odelia or her mom or grandma like to dole out to us in the evening, we decided to go and sit outside for a while and enjoy those last rays of sunshine of the day. And I was just about to head out when I saw through the window that Ted was taking his dogs for a walk again—and this naturally included Brutus and Harriet, who were now part and parcel of his canine family.
Harriet looked distinctly unhappy, but Brutus was manfully persistent and pranced along in Rufus’s wake.
“Poor Harriet,” said Dooley. “Maybe we should ask her to leave Brutus and come back to us?”
I also felt sorry for the Persian. Slowly but inexorably all the things she loved were taken away from her: she couldn’t sing the soprano parts in cat choir anymore, and she couldn’t even eat her favorite cat food any longer.
Rufus must have seen us glancing out at them through the window, for he gave us a little wave. Oddly enough there was a slight sense of frustration in his eyes, too, if I read his expression well, which I think I did.
“Rufus doesn’t look very happy either,” I remarked therefore.
“I saw him this morning. He complained that Harriet has been hounding him.”
“Hounding him?” I asked with a laugh. “How can a cat hound a dog?”
“I don’t know but that’s what he said. He didn’t have a lot of time to talk, because he had to join Marcie for his morning walk.”